Abducted (1986)

... aka: Abduction

... aka: El salvaje y su presa (The Savage and His Prey)

... aka: Entführt und gepeinigt (Kidnapped and Tormented)

... aka: Jakten (The Hunt)

... aka: Kidnapped

... aka: Terrore nella foresta (Terror in the Forest)

Directed by:

Boon Collins

In the summer of 1984, 22-year-old American biathlon (a sport combining cross country skiing and rifle shooting) competitor Kari Swenson was working a summer job in Montana when she was kidnapped by father-and-son wackos and wanna-be part-time survivalists, who supposedly were keen on eventually forcing her to be the son's wife. Her traumatic ordeal included her being wrapped in a sleeping bag and chained to a tree for the better part of a day and then being shot in the chest at point blank range with a rifle. A few search party members had stumbled upon the kidnappers' camp, one was shot in the face and killed, while Swenson was shot and left for dead. It wouldn't be until four hours later that the critically injured Swenson was located. Her attackers were tracked down months later, convicted and spent many years in prison, while injuries forced Swenson out of the sport she had already set several records in (she was the highest ranked American biathlete for decades) for awhile, though she was able to recuperate and compete again in 1986. Afterward, she became a veterinarian.

This bizarre true life tale was a top news story nearly four decades ago and thus spawned endless newspaper and magazine articles, as well as books and several film adaptations. The "official" recount of the story was the made-for-TV movie The Abduction of Kari Swenson (1987), which starred Tracy Pollan as Swenson and M. Emmet Walsh and Michael Bowen as her abductors, Don and Dan Nichols. Swenson herself served as technical advisor on that version to keep it as accurate as possible. However, exploitation cinema isn't so keen on the details so there were a number of other Swenson-inspired films hoping to cash in. This Canadian effort managed to beat the TV movie version to the punch by a year. It takes major liberties with the actual story whilst still boasting its "true story" credentials.

College student and long distance runner Renee Aldridge (Roberta Weiss) is out jogging in the foggy woods when she senses someone is watching / stalking her. Before she knows it, armed, grizzled, mentally-unhinged mountain man Vern (Lawrence King-Phillips) jumps in front of her, grabs her by the hair and yanks her into forest. When she puts up the slightest bit of resistance, he slaps her in the face, ties a rope around her neck and keeps plodding along. Vern drags Renee deeper into the woods, threatens her with a knife, whips her with a rope, sniffs her, pats her on the ass and hog-ties her when it's time to sleep so she can't run away. By the next day, there's already a large search party with hunters, dogs and a helicopter out scouring the mountains looking for her.

Vern dishes out psychological torment to his captive while also trying to train Renee for her new life living in the wild. An attempt to run away is foiled when she gets lost in the woods at night, basically circles around to where she ran away from and falls asleep. When she awakens, an amused Vern is sitting there waiting for her and informs her he was tracking her the entire time. He makes her climb up a steep cliff, feeds her raw eggs and even allows her to hold his gun while he scours for food; all in an attempt to build up some kind of trust with her while at the same time proving she's basically fucked out there in the middle of nowhere without him and his survival skills. He even saves her from going over a waterfall after she falls into some rapids.

The two eventually make it to Vern's cabin, where she's tied up, forced to lay on animal skins, is taught how to gut and clean their food and informed she's now in her new home and will eventually learn to like it (and him). When he attempts to rip her clothes off and rape her, he has a premature ejaculation issue and cries afterward. In a major deviation from the actual story, Vern's kindly, crippled, nature-lovin', God-fearin' daddy Joe (Dan Haggerty) shows up insisting they immediately return the girl to her parents. We learn a little about Vern's past in foster homes, prisons and institutions, which have all clearly failed him. And we learn a little about Joe, who is guilt-stricken for failing Vern himself when he abandoned him as a child and left him with his promiscuous, neglectful, alcoholic mother to raise. A high school dropout whose own father died at a young age in a logging accident, Joe is now trying to atone for the sins of his past helping his now-deranged son the only way he knows how: removing him from society altogether.

Haggerty's character has a true disdain for wealthy trophy hunters who rent helicopters just so they can gun down endangered Stone sheep, whom he feels a kinship, and an almost spiritual connection, with. On their way to take Renee back to civilization, they cross paths with one such group of "hunters." Renee panics, tries to run to them for help and a frantic Vern shoots and kills one of the hunting party. Later that night, Vern tries to rape Renee yet again, but is run off by Joe. Their journey toward civilization continues with Vern trying to stake his claim over Renee ("You're mine... I killed a man for you!") and becoming increasingly more angry, paranoid and violent.

This is a bizarre film in that it's pure exploitation by the very definition of the word (trying to cash-in on a real-life crime case) yet one that consistently shies away from being overtly exploitative in ways that may engender it some kind of cult following. It's not accurate enough to cut it as a true crime film, not quite tense, exciting or thoughtful enough to entirely work as a serious movie and not lurid or sleazy enough to work as a guilty pleasure trash flick. It is, however, a solidly-crafted film that manages to be entertaining in spite of its shortcomings and has sincere performances from the cast. Weiss is adequate (though her role is insufficiently developed compared to the male leads), Haggerty is actually quite good here and King-Phillips is mostly effective, though he does slide into camp overacting toward the end.

The film's best attribute is lots of gorgeous Canadian scenery, which is wonderfully framed and shot by Robert McLachlan, who'd eventually move on to a prolific career shooting top TV shows like Game of Thrones and Ray Donovan. The unfortunate part is all that's currently available are dark, murky VHS copies. One hopes that this will be cleaned-up and better presented one day.

Abducted received very wide global video distribution in the late 80s and there were video releases all over North and South America (the U. S. release was from Prism), Europe and Japan. Since then, it's been all but completely forgotten.

King-Phillips and Haggerty both returned in the same roles in the easier-to-find and more exploitative sequel; Abducted II: The Reunion (1995), which was made by the same director and writers (Collins and Lindsay Bourne) and was also shot in British Columbia. In that one, Vern kidnaps and terrorizes three former school chums, played by pouty Italian sexpot Raquel Bianca, real-life martial artist Donna Jason and, most notably, Debbie Rochon in an early starring role before she solidified her status as a B-movie horror queen. Both films were shown on USA Up All Night.

★★1/2

Abducted II: The Reunion (1994)

... aka: Abducted 2

Directed by:
Boon Collins

Abducted II just happened to roll its way into my VCR at the right time. It has quite a few impossible-to-believe and/or silly sequences, but after sitting through too-numerous-to-mention lame 'erotic horror' efforts from the 1990s, this low-budget thriller ended up being surprisingly fun and entertaining; an all-around breath of fresh air. Basically, it was nice to see a contemporary 'B' picture that cuts out the tiresome ten-minute slow-mo sex scenes in favor of action, story, scenery and character. This one delivers pretty much what exploitation fans want to see (possibly more), and much in restraint to genre demands; meaning there's violence, but not too much; T&A, but not too much, etc. Nothing really crowds out or takes too much time away from the story, which is rare in one of these films. And the story is actually very workable, fast-paced, action packed and energetic. It's a follow-up to ABDUCTED, a pretty obscure and seldom-discussed 1986 film from the same director, which featured Lawrence King-Phillips as Vern; a grizzled, bearded backwoods madman in animal skins who kidnaps a jogger and plots to make his new captive his wife. At the end of that film, Vern was killed by his own estranged father (Dan Haggerty). Or so he thought.

This sequel (set many years after the first) finds three former college chums; busty, pouty Italian babe Maria (Raquel Bianca), reserved red-head divorcée Sharon (Debbie Rochon) and tough blonde Ingrid (Donna Jason), reuniting for a nature trip in a secluded Canadian national park. After a quick stop at a general store for a quick chat with the owner (Jan-Michael Vincent), the girls hike to a lake, camp out for the night, share stories and drink, but their fun (and a strong hint that Maria and Ingrid are really lesbian lovers, a side-plot that incidentally goes nowhere and is curiously dropped altogether) is short-lived and in come the horror film trappings. Vern (King-Phillips again) comes crawling out of the woods in a horned animal mask, kills a voyeuristic male camper staying nearby, assaults the ladies, ties them to a tree and then informs them he's still actively searching for a wife. After doing some animalistic mating dance and looking the three lovely ladies over, he can't quite decide and figures, what the hell, he'll just take all three of them fillies back to his cave home.

The girls are tied together in a chain and are yanked through the woods when Vern decides to stop so the ladies can strip and show him what they got. However, Vern doesn't know that Ingrid is a black-belt, so she turns the tables on him, karate kicks him, does some back flips and escapes. Vern just shrugs and continues on with the other two. Then we get a hilarious She-Rambo sequence where Ingrid (dressed in spandex pants and a sports bra) ties a wet bandanna around her head, camouflages herself with mud and tree limbs, carves a home-made spear out of a branch and then heads out to save her pals. She ends up catching up to them on a rope bridge and nails Vern with a spear. He and Maria tumble into the rapids and wash far down the shore. Wimpy Sharon (whom Vern deemed "damaged goods" for having been previously married) wants to go get help, but Ingrid insists they don't have the time and have to save Maria on their own. Vern and Maria end up making it back to the cave, where she tries to keep him from raping her by becoming his friend and assuring him women like it "tender and gentle." He makes her take off her "city clothes" and wear an animal rag. She relates an out-of-place, but brief, sex flashback. Ingrid and Sharon continue to trample through the woods. Meanwhile, Grizzly Adams himself, Dan Haggerty (as the same character from the first film), reluctantly guides brutish Vincent (whose pastime is big game hunting) around in a helicopter so he can hunt down a white ram for his trophy room. Everyone converges to lock horns at a finale where all the guys end up seriously injured or dead as the ladies resort to their primitive animal instincts to survive.

Filmed on picturesque Vancouver Island, Canada, this has the occasional badly-matched stock shot of a wild animal lurking about, but the cinematography is pretty good and the location work (around forests of mossy trees, waterfalls, rock cliff, etc.) is great. There's always something to look at it. A decapitated sheep head rolling down a hill is a pretty memorably odd sight, anyway. The acting isn't Oscar caliber (not that this film requires it), but it's surprisingly good nonetheless. No one walks through their role. King Phillips is effective as the ranting madman and makes a grand entrance, Jason (a real-life martial arts champ) is great, Haggerty and Bianca are both fine and hell, even Vincent (looking a little less haggard than usual for this time) is watchable. After you get over the initial shock of seeing Rochon as a weak-whiny character here, you'll see she can also be believable as a more conservative member of society... Conservative that is until she gets desperate for help and rips her top off to try to get the attention of a helicopter. And conservative until she gets fired-up at the very end and... Well, I won't ruin the end but to say Debbie gets the single best line in the film and it's well worth waiting for.

Despite some minor debits, the cast, director (who co-scripted with Lindsay Bourne with a fun feminist slant) and production people respect their audience and get higher marks for good will, meaning I'm cutting this some slack in the grading department. The DVD release - just a transfer from the video version - was from Front Row Entertainment.

★★1/2

Bloody Movie (1987)

...aka: Terror Night

Directed by:

André de Toth

Nick Marino

1920s film star Lance Hayward is missing to the world at large, but people begin mysteriously dying around his abandoned estate. Three teen couples (including a woman who is a huge fan of the presumably deceased actor) end up going there on an otherwise boring weekend and rummaging through the place. They find old movie props, a locked vault, nitrate movie cans (that come in handy during the fiery finale) and some other interesting things until they start disappearing one by one. There are also a few barely-seen Zoot Suit-wearing phantoms who lurk around the woods and use two cars to pull a guy in half.

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Director Nick Marino's contribution to the 80s slasher cycle does not fully overcome the familiarity of the premise, but stylistically he is trying something a little bit different, beginning with mock silent screen credits and a great song by Ian Whitcomb which is also an effective evocation of the Golden Age of Hollywood. Before each murder, we get a flurry of movie clips from anonymous films and comic-book like shots of movie stills and lobby cards, all edited with quick precision and all tinted monochrome, so it doesn't look as sloppy as it otherwise would have. The clips may also explain why this film did not find a wide release until about fifteen years after it was made (the filmmaker may have come across some copyright problems when using this footage). The special effects are certainly bloody enough and there are a variety of murders here. A man is pulled apart by two cars, a hand is chopped off, someone is impaled on a picket fence and there's a pretty good decapitation (followed by a bloody head on a platter gag). Other deaths involve everything from a bow and arrow to fencing sword. The sets are minimal, but effective.

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However, the screenplay could have definitely used another polish; the stereotyped characters are thrown into the mix with a killer who is not only wholesale boogie-man material but whose motivations and reason for existing are so hopelessly muddled that you never know for sure just what he is or why he is doing what he's doing. The clarity is almost non-existent, but I supposed the man is a ghost since he pops up all over the place and appears in both youthful and elderly forms. But, hell, by the time it's all over with, you can't totally hate this one. After all, somehow it ends up letting the cultured heavy and lone female survivor do some passionate Shakespearian stage work somewhere in limbo!

As with most 80s slasher films, the performances are highly variable. The veterans in the cast all have about one scene each and get through BLOODY MOVIE with a bare minimum of embarrassment. Aldo Ray is a wino who gets a hook in the head, Dan Haggerty is impaled, Cameron Mitchell is a detective who is strangled and hung and Alan Hale, Jr. (The Skipper from Gilligan's Island) is a wide-eyed security guard (and the only one without a death scene). John Ireland receives top billing as the killer, but he doesn't even materialize on-screen until the very end (though to his credit, it is still a creepy cameo). Of the younger cast, we have some familiar genre regulars, William Butler (LEATHERFACE, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD remake), Ken Abraham (CREEPOZOIDS), Carla Baron and John Stuart Wildman (both from SORORITY BABES IN THE SLIMEBALL BOWL-O-RAMA), and Denise Stafford (who apparently is a porn actress who goes by the name Jamie Summers). Though leading lady Staci Greason (who played the first victim in FRIDAY THE 13TH, PART VII) is quite good and gives the most professional showing of the younger cast, it is Michelle Bauer who steals this film away from her co-stars with a full blown comedic performance. She carries on quite capably here and nails the most laughs as a drunken punker chick who ends up stumbling her way through the mansion with her annoying biker boyfriend before getting whipped and pushed down a flight of stairs. It's actually one of her very best roles, making this delayed DVD release an important one in keeping her cult legacy alive. I also appreciate the filmmakers for having the common sense to keep her around until near the end. Though I am sad to report that sleaze movie great Jay Richardson, who is in just as many of the schlock horror films as Michelle, is barely visible as one of the forest-lurking phantoms.

Originally titled TERROR NIGHT, this was worked on by a lot of prolific and familiar Z-movie production people. It was co-scripted by Kenneth J. Hall (who also helped cast the film), was co-produced by Nancy Paloian (DUDE, WHERE'S MY CAR?) and shot by Howard Wexler. The special effects are by Cleve Hall (who was also the 2nd unit director, along with porn purveyor Fred J. Lincoln) and John Vulich helped shoot and edit it. Given special thanks in the end credits are André de Toth (who lent directorial assist to Marino), David DeCoteau and Fred Olen Ray.

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★★1/2

Elves (1989)

Directed by:

Jeff Mandel

This isn't a good film, but it's a pretty good bad film. Troubled blonde teen Kirsten (Julie Austin) has a horrible home life that rivals just about everything Linda Blair went through in her 1970s film adventures. Her dad is out of the picture (or so she thinks). Her mother (Deanna Lund, of "Land of the Giants" fame) is an icy mega-bitch whose idea of punishment is tapping into her daughter's savings account. Her kid brother Willy (Christopher Graham) is an obnoxious perv who likes to look at her boobies. Her German grandfather (Borah Silver) is a wheelchair bound weirdo who slaps her around for staying out too late. Needless to say, Kirsten is having a hard time getting into the holiday spirit. On top of all that, she's having these strange dreams which have something to do with some book or her family lineage or a drawing she made. It's all rather muddled and hard to understand. Kirsten, along with her bimbette friends Brooke (Laura Lichstein) and Amy (Stacey Dye), decide to hold some sort of séance out in the middle of the woods. Before they can even get started, Kirsten cuts her hand on a busted glass candle. Blood gets on the ground, the girls leave and out pops a rubbery elf monster! Not elves. An elf. Just one of them. Don't expect GREMLIN like monsters running around killing everyone despite the title.

Kirsten works at a department store. It's Christmastime and her boss is being a jerk. He threatens to fire her after she knocks out the guy playing Santa for trying to feel her up. The elf sneaks into the store and kills the mean Santa by stabbing him in the crotch about 10 times with a knife. Police show up and basically do nothing. Homeless, out of work former store detective Mike McGavin (Dan Haggerty) is hired on to replace the dead Santa. Despite the mysterious murder and a mad killer still on the loose who was just there earlier that day, Kirsten, Brooke and Amy decide to have a secret slumber party after hours in the store. They invite three guys over (who never make it inside), put on make-up, try on ugly lingerie, decide what tents they want to boff their boy toys in and end up getting attacked by both the elf AND some heavily armed posse of mystery men who somehow know all about what's going on. Only Kirsten and Mike end up getting out of the store alive, but there's more fun in store for young Kristen when she gets home.

As it turns out, Kirsten is of a rather special bloodline. The Nazis are after her because they know she is the key to reviving the "Master Race." They know that only a virgin who is the bi-product of father-daughter incest is suitable to mate with an elf to bring on the second coming of the Third Reich. Will the rubbery elf fiend be able to wine, dine and consummate its relationship with Kirsten? Does Kirsten now wish she'd given it up to her mullet-sporting suitor in the home improvements section earlier in the film? See what happens when you save yourself for marriage, ladies. Tragic consequences always ensue. You'll either get a lot of innocent people killed because cannibals want to sacrifice you or you'll get lots of innocent people killed because elves want to mate with you to create Nazis.

In addition to the wacky plot, this one has lots of profanity, lots of bad taste, lots of bad acting, lots of quotable terrible dialogue, lots of hideous 80s hair and clothes, a little gore and even some nudity, most of which is provided by the evil mother character when she gets electrocuted in the bathtub when the elf throws a radio in. It's all pretty awful, yet entertaining nonetheless.

SBIG